Cornell at Harvard 11/16

[adamw]

Strange for you to suggest coaches have no control over player decisionmaking and execution. "Careless turnovers have nothing to do with coaching instruction"? Who's the fool here?

Allow me to answer that question ... Still you. Yep. For thinking that somehow after 30 years, the coach forgot how to instruct his players on decision making and execution. SMH. But keep digging.

[upprdeck]

PP and PK we really only look at the results to decide how well they played.

You can score goals on the PP without doing much of anything right if you get the right bounce. The same that you can kill a PP without doing many things right on the PK if the other team misses a pass or whiffs on an open net.

Chances matter more, and most of us don't really go back and look at the PP and PK to see mistakes. Coaches do.

[BearLover]

Strange for you to suggest coaches have no control over player decisionmaking and execution. "Careless turnovers have nothing to do with coaching instruction"? Who's the fool here?

Allow me to answer that question ... Still you. Yep. For thinking that somehow after 30 years, the coach forgot how to instruct his players on decision making and execution. SMH. But keep digging.

So any successful coach is infallible and nothing is ever their fault. Cornell defenseman has time and space but no idea where to go with the puck—we saw that multiple times the last few games—and none of that falls on the coach? When Schafer introduced a new forechecking system in 2014, Cornell was terrible that year, and then Schafer admitted it was a mistake at the end of the season because the players didn't know their assignments—not the coach's fault? Anybody can give many more examples of good coaches changing strategies and systems and those things not working out. Syer, whom everyone praised for being an extremely detail-oriented coach, leaves Cornell and then the PK consistently botches details. But don't worry—it's the players who are just dumb, the coaches are infallible.

[chimpfood]

Christ is there a way to mute a thread on here?

[ugarte]

hey man could you write another 2000 words so we're clear on your thesis?

[upprdeck]

Strange for you to suggest coaches have no control over player decisionmaking and execution. "Careless turnovers have nothing to do with coaching instruction"? Who's the fool here?

Allow me to answer that question ... Still you. Yep. For thinking that somehow after 30 years, the coach forgot how to instruct his players on decision making and execution. SMH. But keep digging.

So any successful coach is infallible and nothing is ever their fault. Cornell defenseman has time and space but no idea where to go with the puck—we saw that multiple times the last few games—and none of that falls on the coach? When Schafer introduced a new forechecking system in 2014, Cornell was terrible that year, and then Schafer admitted it was a mistake at the end of the season because the players didn't know their assignments—not the coach's fault? Anybody can give many more examples of good coaches changing strategies and systems and those things not working out. Syer, whom everyone praised for being an extremely detail-oriented coach, leaves Cornell and then the PK consistently botches details. But don't worry—it's the players who are just dumb, the coaches are infallible.

he only way to know if you can get better is to try That why golfers like Rory and Tiger and Jack who were at the top consistently tried new things. Trying something and failing isnt a bad thing.  You wont know until you do it.  No different than bball coaches.  Most would love to be able to play full court press m2m all over and stress the other teams out.  But when you try it you might fail and find out you only have the players for 2-3 zone.  Credit to coach for realizing his players couldnt master it and going back.  That doesn't mean we wouldn't be a better team if we were good at the other system.

[BearLover]

hey man could you write another 2000 words so we're clear on your thesis?

Ask and you shall receive. Stayed tuned for this weekend's games.

[marty]

hey man could you write another 2000 words so we're clear on your thesis?

Ask and you shall receive. Stayed tuned for this weekend's games.

Age gives us https and this is our reward?

[Trotsky]

Even without an Ignore function one can emulate it.

[Tom Lento]

Am I the only person who thinks the special teams haven't looked that bad?

There's a lot of room for improvement on the PP (move without the puck, people!) but at least we aren't sticking to the "only the bumper position can shoot and all we care about is getting him the puck" strategy of the last few years.

And the PK has looked okay, even good, to my eyes.

The results have been mixed on the PK and bad on the PP, but it's been few enough games that a couple bounces here or there are the difference between bad and good.

As far as I'm concerned, we're fine. Get healthy and stop making stupid d-zone turnovers.

I don't think Cornell's special teams have been good in the stretches of play I've seen this year. The PP looks about the same as what I recall for much of the past, oh, 15 years or so. The main difference is this year the results have been bad instead of merely mediocre, but it's only been 6 games. I'm reasonably confident that Cornell will have another mediocre power play when all is said and done. It's pretty clear this team isn't going to have a PP like 2002/03 or 2019/20, but it probably isn't going to end up in the bottom 5 in the NCAA, either.

The PK is a real Jekyll and Hyde act. Several of the kills I've seen have involved stretches of dominant control broken up by sequences where three guys are collapsing high and scrambling back, or just standing around waiting for someone to pick up the man in the slot, or generally running around in the zone. It could be much better, or it could just be what it is, hard to say.

[Tom Lento]

Syer, whom everyone praised for being an extremely detail-oriented coach, leaves Cornell and then the PK consistently botches details.

Not to let facts get in the way of a good argument, but this year's PK has killed 77.8% of penalties, which is about 40th in the NCAA. Last year, with Syer on the staff, the PK killed 79%, which, as someone else already pointed out someplace, was 37th in the NCAA. Worth noting, half of Cornell's games this season have come against 2 of the top 5 teams in the NCAA for PP % (Dartmouth and NoDak), and I'm reasonably sure at least one of them (NoDak) will end up in the top 10, so it's at least possible this year's team has a better PK but ran into some particularly tough competition early.

Based on the small samples of games I've been able to watch these last two seasons the kill has looked pretty similar. This year's has been better when it's good and worse when it's bad but it's all been a matter of degree, there were plenty of botched details last year, too. All of this suggests two things to me:

1. They've probably got a mediocre PK again (although I do think this year's team has more upside than last year's)
2. Ben Syer has nothing to do with it

[Trotsky]

"You're never as good as you look when you win.

You're never as bad as you look when you lose."

Grab a drink, sit back, watch another 20 games. Maybe then we'll know something that isn't merely a reaction to the last shift.

[BearLover]

Syer, whom everyone praised for being an extremely detail-oriented coach, leaves Cornell and then the PK consistently botches details.

Not to let facts get in the way of a good argument, but this year's PK has killed 77.8% of penalties, which is about 40th in the NCAA. Last year, with Syer on the staff, the PK killed 79%, which, as someone else already pointed out someplace, was 37th in the NCAA. Worth noting, half of Cornell's games this season have come against 2 of the top 5 teams in the NCAA for PP % (Dartmouth and NoDak), and I'm reasonably sure at least one of them (NoDak) will end up in the top 10, so it's at least possible this year's team has a better PK but ran into some particularly tough competition early.

Based on the small samples of games I've been able to watch these last two seasons the kill has looked pretty similar. This year's has been better when it's good and worse when it's bad but it's all been a matter of degree, there were plenty of botched details last year, too. All of this suggests two things to me:

1. They've probably got a mediocre PK again (although I do think this year's team has more upside than last year's)
2. Ben Syer has nothing to do with it

Last year we had up to 10 freshmen in the lineup every night. Has Cornell not historically had a good PK under Syer looking at more than just last season?

[VIEWfromK]

2. Ben Syer has nothing to do with it

Can't we just ask him on Saturday if he did?

[CU2007]

2. Ben Syer has nothing to do with it

Can't we just ask him on Saturday if he did?

The difference between our 78% PK (kinda meh) and say 85% (outstanding) is (at this point of the season) what? 2 goals? I would chalk that up to puck luck and small sample size variance. I suspect this will revert to the mean and be about what we expect by the end of the year.